Medieval England: From Hastings to Bosworth

Medieval England presents a broad panorama of the political and cultural development of English society from the Norman Conquest to the end of the Wars of the Roses. It is a story of change, progress, setback, and consolidation, with England emerging as a wealthy and stable country, many of whose essential features were to remain unchanged until the industrial revolution. Edmund King traces his chronicle the lives of successive monarchs, the inescapable thread of that epoch. Yet the great nobles, knights, and merchants meeting in parliament provided constraints which bound even the most powerful king, and a major theme of this book is the gradual emergence of a single political community of shared ideas embracing all ranks of society. Within this framework the author examines many other facets of medieval England, including everyday life, warfare and chivalry, religion and learning, agriculture and economic developments, the machinery of government, the administration of justice, art, and architecture.